Each tree has its own stem pests. The greatest damage to coniferous and garden (fruit) species is caused by the bark beetle topographer. It populates weakened trees, logging residues, stumps, young seedlings, it can affect building timber and ready-made wooden houses. It is difficult to see with the naked eye a bark beetle eating a tree. But finding out what he looks like is easy.
A small insect (from one to three millimeters) flies into the trees and makes an inlet, cutting through the bark of the trunk. Its purpose is the nutrient layer of the bast. Eating it, the bark beetle forms passages in which it then lays eggs. The beetle spends its entire life in a thin nutrient layer responsible for the movement of assimilators from the roots to the upper branches of the crown. Damage to such an important artery leads to the death of the tree. That is why it is so important to know how the fight against bark beetle is carried out on an apple tree, pear, any other fruit or coniferous tree growing on a personal plot.
Signs of garden defeat
If a bark beetle is wound up on a tree, you can easily see signs of damage to the plant by the pest. Denote some of them.
- The very first sign of the presence of a pest is severe milling. This is a good sign, as it indicates that the tree has the strength to resist the pest on its own. But with massive attacks, no protection from the bark beetle will help.
- The second sign is found during a thorough inspection of the tree trunk. If a bark beetle has settled, which feeds on a certain layer of wood, then its trunk will have round-shaped openings. They can be of different sizes. The location of the holes on the wood can suggest the stage of development of the lesion. If the holes do not smolder, they are located on the lower parts of the trunk, which means that the larvae have already degenerated into an adult beetle, and it flew further - to hit other living objects of the garden. Holes in the lower sections - an occasion to check the whole garden.
- A third sign of the presence of the beetle is wood flour that accumulates around the inlets. Outwardly, it looks like small filings of light or brown color. If the sawdust is brown, then one beetle has wound up. White filings indicate parasitization of another pest - barbel. The barbel comes after the bark beetles and settles in the passages they have already done in wood, on trees and on building boards.
- A sign of the last stage of wrecking of the bark beetle is the exfoliation of the bark. She falls off in large pieces. During this period, any remedy for bark beetles will be ineffective. The only thing you can do is cut down the tree and burn it. If you find the first three signs of wood damage, you can still save the tree.
Is there a universal remedy for bark beetle? When combining existing techniques to combat harmful insects, you can try to save the garden.
Garden parasite control methods
Scientists recommend considering not only traditional methods, but also new developments of specialists involved in the protection of forests and horticulture.
Advantages and disadvantages of traditional tactics
In many household plots, the fight against bark beetles is carried out in the traditional way. Seasonally - in spring and autumn - trees are treated with insecticides. They are in specialized stores. Funds are inexpensive, the processing technology is simple: the trees are completely (both trunks and branches) coated with the selected composition.
Fast and inexpensive are the main advantages of the described option. The disadvantage of this method is the difficulty in choosing the composition. Many gardeners neglect the attached instructions, do not comply with the proportions recommended by the manufacturer (make the solution thicker, for example, naively assuming that it will become more effective). But this is not so bad.
Processing from the bark beetle is carried out by companies that previously poisoned cockroaches and bedbugs, or former climbers who believe that washing windows in high-rise towers and fighting bark beetles are one and the same. Solutions are bred with the expectation of saving, non-observance of proportions leads to the formation of resistance (immunity of pests to insecticidal solutions). Often, such a fight against bark beetles leads to the death of treated trees. To make a professional garden treatment, you need to seek help from a licensed pathologist.
A single treatment of trees with cheap insecticidal solutions does not guarantee the preservation of the garden.
Describing more real remedies for bark beetle, experts pay attention to the effectiveness of biological remedies. They help get rid of beetles by non-chemical methods, and by using pheromone and anti-pheromone traps. If a bark beetle starts, it makes sense to try them out.
Pros and cons of using biological methods
What is a pheromone trap? This is a tree treated with pheromone preparations. Their smell attracts insects from all around (the radius of action of the poison is seven kilometers). All of them crawl to one tree. After that, it is doomed, so it must be cut down and destroyed (burned). Adult beetles, their larvae, and eggs will burn in the fire. Before using a pheromone trap, it is important to calculate all the risks, since the smell of pheromone preparations will run away and bark beetles from all around (both their own and others) will come together, so it will be more difficult to deal with such an army.
It is quite difficult for a layman to control the "invasion". Biological control of bark beetles will be unsafe in a garden with an area of more than ten hectares: too many trees will be threatened, it will be difficult to check all the trees on their own for bark beetles.
Scientists, observing the life of the described beetles and their larvae, noticed that they, populating a tree, mark it with a special secret. This is a sign to other bugs: a tree is busy. Based on this knowledge, they proposed a more effective version of the biological trap against the bark beetle - the use of antiferomonic drugs. They have already proven themselves well, such tools are now actively used both for processing trees, and for all wooden structures. Particularly effective are antiferomones in combination with special injections. What are they like?
What is barrier protection?
Barrier protection is an obstacle for the bark beetle and its larvae, which is formed due to spraying and injection. The spraying method has already been mentioned earlier, the essence of injections for trees is as follows:
A chemical preparation is injected under the bark of the trunk. Its composition is determined taking into account the type of bark beetle, the degree of damage to the object, its height and age. An incorrectly selected chemical leads to blockage of the vessels of the tree, along which all nutrient juices, as well as life-giving moisture, move. The composition of the medicine should include means capable of transporting the necessary substances throughout the trunk of the treated object. After the injection, the injection site must be sealed. And only a gardener can do this. That is why injections are not widespread. Much easier to remove the bark beetle, to perform mechanical cleaning of trees.
Mechanical method
The simplest tool is the mechanical collection of beetles. They creep out from under the bark twice a year (after the pore of flowering plants and before the first frosts) and become vulnerable. It was at this time that you can arm yourself with thin wire and carry out the destruction of parasites, that is, clean it with all the moves that the beetle bug made. Pest nests are destroyed. If you combine mechanical cleaning with barrier protection, the tree will be able to save. But during operation, it is better to lay wallpaper or plastic film on the ground. It will become a barrier between land and pests.
Preventative measures
There is a set of preventive measures to help prevent the appearance of a dangerous beetle on the fruit trees of the infield. It is useful to outline the main points:
- Twice a year - in spring and autumn - you need to dig the soil in the garden around all the trees well.
- During leaf fall, it is necessary to collect leaves daily - to collect and be sure to destroy (burn) in open areas.
- It is useful to constantly inspect the trees, if dead parts of the bark or branches are found to destroy them.
- If the bark beetle has already hit the trees, it’s worth cutting down them without regret, and then digging and stumping. When treatment of trees is appropriate, therapy is carried out with strict adherence to all stages. And ordinary dichlorvos will not help here.
- Every spring, after pruning, the trees are treated with special compounds (insecticides) that can be prepared at home. There are two simple recipes. The first recipe that helps to kill a beetle involves preparing a product from vegetable oil, paraffin and rosin (proportion 6x3x3). First, paraffin is heated, crushed rosin is added to it, everything on the fire is well melted, diluted with vegetable oil, the mixture is boiled over an open fire for ten minutes. The second recipe against the beetle is prepared from a kilogram of rosin, three hundred grams of drying oil and five kilograms of paraffin. All ingredients are put into one container and melt on fire. Both mixtures are infused and applied to the trees, trunks and branches are oiled with it.
Is bark beetle dangerous for a wooden house and building timber?
If an understanding carpenter sees a garden around a wooden house in which trees are infected with a bark beetle, he will certainly sound the alarm. After all, harmless beetles can turn a two-story log house into dust in a couple of years. For wooden buildings and building timber, not an adult individual, but its larvae are terrible. It is they who lay kilometer passages in any lumber. It is important to purchase well-dried wood at the construction stage.
Checking the moisture content of the lumber is easy. It is enough to drop a few drops of iodine on it. If the tree turns blue under them, the humidity is high. In the infected garden, such lumber will become a potential object for the settlement of the bark beetle.
If there are cracks on long beams, the female bark beetle will easily select them to lay their eggs. Laying eggs on lumber looks like black spots of irregular shape. The photo shows how she looks.
The presence of yellow dust should also alert. An untreated wild log house is dangerous, and a bark beetle is able to hide under its bark. Experts, answering the question of how to get rid of the bark beetle at the construction stage, recommend more carefully, with a magnifying glass in their hands, to study every wooden detail of the future home. For any signs of infection, it is best to immediately abandon the entire batch and find other suppliers. Later, the situation will be difficult to correct.
And what if the bark beetle appeared in an already built wooden house? This is common if the building is surrounded by an infected garden. Beetles do not like sunny places, so they hit the under-roof space. The attic is an ideal place for them. Therefore, the examination of the house must begin with this part of it. Signs of the presence of a beetle on building wood are the same as on trees in the garden (they are described in detail at the beginning of the article). If symptoms of damage to a wooden house are detected, the fight against the bark beetle should begin immediately.
What should be done?
You can save a wooden house if you follow the recommendations.
- If the wood is badly damaged, it will have to be changed and burned outside in the yard. The grinder must not be used. Its vibration forms dust, which is easily carried throughout the house. And it may contain beetle eggs.
- If single lesions are detected, the entire wooden house from the outside and from the inside must be treated with a special solution. It is prepared as follows: half a kilogram of water is added half a kilogram of carbolic acid, a liter of liquid laundry soap. Everything is thoroughly mixed and diluted with water in proportions of 1x25.
- Before spraying, thoroughly clean the walls. The goal is to remove the caulking material, and then walk on all surfaces with a vacuum cleaner. Then all the wood is treated with an antiseptic (it dries up a day), impregnation with fire retardants is applied on top (the house dries again a day). All identified moves are filled with a solution of a mixture of turpentine and kerosene (1x3). Then the solution is processed, the recipe of which was described just above.
- Then all the wooden parts are coated with hot linseed oil.
- After that, all cracks and cracks are filled with sealant. Internal walls - with acrylic sealants, external - with silicone.
Such treatment at home is not a one-time event, it will have to be carried out constantly. Then you will be able to protect your home from the harm of this unpleasant insect.